Stroboscopic display

ABSTRACT

There is provided an advertising system for use in railway tunnels and elevator shafts, etc., whereby a succession of pictures having incremental differences are fixed to a wall outside the passenger vehicles. The movement of the vehicle gives to the pictures an animated appearance to a viewer within the vehicle. The system is substantially operable at any vehicle speed above a certain minimum and is not dependent on the spacing of windows in the vehicle.

O United States Patent 1 3,694,062 Koenig [451 Sept. 26, 1972 STROBOSCOPIC DISPLAY FOREIGN PATENTS OR APPLICATIONS [72] Inventor: Wolf M. Koenig, Montreal, Quebec, 1,008,912 2/1952 France ..352/ 100 Canada 649,226 8/1928 France ..352/100 [73] Assignees: Roman Kroitor, Montreal, Quebec;

Bram AWL, westmont, Quebec Primary Examiner-S. Clement Swisher C d Attorney-Cushman, Darby & Cushman [22] Filed: Oct. 30, 1969 [57] ABSTRACT [21] Appl' 872636 There is provided an advertising system for use in railway tunnels and elevator shafts, etc., whereby a suc- Foreign Applleatien Priority Data cession of pictures having incremental differences are March 31, 1969 Canada ..47,335 fixed a Outside the Passenger vehicles The movement of the vehicle gives to the pictures an ani- [52] US. Cl. ..352/100, 40/130 L ma d app a an t a i w r within th vehicle. The {51] Int. Cl. ..G03b 25/00 system is substantially operable at any vehicle speed [58] Field of Search "352/100; 40/ 106.52, I30 L; above a certain minimum and is not dependent on the 315/155, 156, 157 spacing of windows in the vehicle.

[56] References Cited UNITED STATES PATENTS 1 Claim, 2 Drawing Figures 917,587 4/1906 Good ..352/l00 PATENTEDSEP26 m2 7 3.694 062 SHEET 1 [IF 2 STROBOSCOPIC DISPLAY This invention relates to stroboscopic displays of particular, but not inclusive, application for advertising on the walls of passenger-transit tunnels and elevator shafts.

Prior art animation devices embrace zoetropes, flikker-scopes, biographs and other illusion devices involving a series of graduated characters or figures scanned in succession by a viewer. Such prior art is represented by U.S. Pat Nos. 721,718; 742,632; 917,587; 978,854; 2,026,753; 2,299,731; 2,319,287; 2,913,954 and 3,022,705. Two of these patents, i.e., U.S. Pat. Nos. 917,587 and 978,854 are directed to systems wherein a moving passenger vehicle is made to trigger, in succession, a series of lamps each of which is associated with one of the pictures or frames. One patent, i.e., US. Pat. No. 2,319,287 teaches the successive illumination of a series of graduated pictures by a triggered lamp mounted on the vehicle.

All the foregoing prior art suffers from varying degrees of unnecessary complexity or the need for geometrically correlating picture spacing with the window spacing on the vehicle or the need to affix one or more components on the vehicle.

The present invention envisages, in a system for use with internally lighted vehicles, the satisfaction of the following criteria wherein the system is (a) independent of variations in vehicle speed, (b) is independent of vehicle window spacing relative to picture spacing, (c) is effective for viewers within the vehicle substantially regardless of the angle of view in relation to the plane of the pictures or windows, (d) requires no pictures to be mounted on the vehicle, (e) which has a series of graduated pictures which are illuminated in a succession, and (f) independent of the direction of travel of said vehicle.

An analysis of the abovementioned patents, and in fact all prior art known to the applicants,indicates the existence of no reference or prior art which satisfies all the criteria (a) to (f) discussed above.

It is an object of one aspect of the invention to provide a stroboscopic animated display for use with internally lighted passenger vehicles moving along tunnels, elevator shafts or relatively dark regions.

According to the present invention a stroboscopic animation display system for use with internally lighted passenger vehicles having windows, comprises a series of graduated animation pictures disposed along a surface which the windows of said vehicles may pass, an individual source of high intensity lighting for each picture of said series of pictures, each of said individual sources of lighting being pulsed at a relatively high and random rate in response to an associated firing signal, and an individual photosensitive device associated with and mounted closely by each of said pictures, each photosensitive device producing the said firing signal when internal light emitted from any one of the said windows on a vehicle impinges on the device, thereby to activate the source of lighting associated the respective device, the arrangement being such that the source of light associated with a given picture is pulsed when that picture is wholly in view from that window from which the said internal light was emitted.

A preferred embodiment of the invention will now be described with reference to the accompanying drawings:

FIG. 1 shows a succession of graduated pictures, each with a source of illumination and a photoelectric sensing device for triggering the same.

FIG. 2 is a diagram, in plan, showing the field of view for these passengers.

Referring to FIG. 1, there is shown a succession of graduated pictures 1, 2, n1 and n, each having a source of high intensity, short duration illumination such as shown at 13, and 23. Such sources of illumination, as known for example, as stroboscopic lamps. Each of the lamps are triggered by a signal from a photosensitive device, such as indicated at 12 and 22 by the light passing outwards from the internally lighted vehicle. The devices are preferably disposed as close as possible to their associated pictures. Ideally, the devices should be located near the vertical center-lines of the pictures particularly where vehicles will pass in both directions and where there is practically no time delay between photo-sensing and triggering of the source.

Referring now to FIG. 2, there is shown a highly simplified plan diagram showing the spacial relationship between a series of graduated pictures 41, 51, 61 and 71, and a series of windows 4, 5, 6 and 7 on one side of a passenger vehicle. The windows are separated by win dow-frames or structural members forming part of the vehicle.

Inside the vehicle, there are shown the positions of three passengers A, B and C. The diagram, shows by means of shaded triangles, the angles of view for eachof the three passengers. It will be seen that any one picture is momentarily illuminated only when a vehicle window is opposite thereto.

Thus, there is at least one suitable window, for substantially every passenger position within the vehicle which will provide an animated succession of pulse-illuminated graduated pictures. It will be obvious that where bi-directional travel of the vehicle is contemplated, the animation must be such that the graduated pictures are capable of reverse viewing. For example, an animation showing a person blowing-up a balloon would not be susceptible to reverse viewing with an intelligent result. However, there are an infinite variety of animations which could be reversibly scanned. Preferably the plane of the window frames of the vehicle should be as close to the plane of the series of graduated pictures as possible. Firstly, this will reduce spillover from the illumination of adjacent pictures, secondly, capping, as used in the cinematograph sense, is improved and thirdly, there is possibly more precise triggering of the photosensitive devices. However, the distances between the pictures and the windows may be increased to a practical amount providing the intensity of the strobo lighting is adequate. In all cases however, the photosensitive devices should preferably be adjusted such that triggering occurs when the full width of the picture is visible through the window.

It will be obvious that where there is no numerical relationship between the number of pictures, the number of windows, and the relative sizes and spacing between the pictures and windows, the triggering of the strobo lamps will be substantially random. It is important that the recycling time of the strobo units be sufficiently fast to accommodate the highest triggering rate to be encountered. This time, will of course, be further related to the maximum speed of the vehicle. In practice, this triggering time may be estimated by a simple analysis of the functions involved, as discussed above, or measured by a trail run of the vehicle past the pictures accompanied by timing of the appearance and disappearance of the pictures.

It will be appreciated that the random nature of the triggering, as discussed hereinbefore, permits some deviation in the spacing of the pictures. For example, in a tunnel or an elevator shaft, the presence of irregular small obstructions, such as pipe flanges, cable supports, etc. will not greatly depreciate the effectiveness of the animation provided, of course, that the pictures are of sufficient frequency in relation to the speed of the vehicle.

Other embodiments falling within the terms of the appended claims will occur to those skilled in the art.

lclaim:

l. A stroboscopic animation display system for use with internally lighted passenger vehicles having windows, said system comprising:

i. a series of graduated animation pictures disposed along a surface which the windows of said vehicles y P ii. an individual source of high intensity lighting for each picture of said series of pictures, each said individual source of lighting capable of being pulses at a relatively high rate in response to an associated firing signal, and

iii. an individual photosensitive device associated with and mounted closely by each of said pictures, and being sensitive to light entered from a portion of window area substantially adjacent thereto, thereby to be insensitive to light from sources other than the window passing the device at any given moment, each photosensitive device producing the said firing signal when internal light emitted from any one of the said windows on a vehicle impinges on the device, thereby to activate the source of lighting associated with the respective device. 

1. A stroboscopic animation display system for use with internally lighted passenger vehicles having windows, said system comprising: i. a series of graduated animation pictures disposed along a surface which the windows of said vehicles may pass, ii. an individual source of high intensity lighting for each picture of said series of pictures, each said individual source of lighting capable of being pulses at a relatively high rate in response to an associated firing signal, and iii. an individual photosensitive device associated with and mounted closely by each of said pictures, and being sensitive to light entered from a portion of window area substantially adjacent thereto, thereby to be insensitive to light from sources other than the window passing the device at any given moment, each photosensitive device producing the said firing signal when internal light emitted from any one of the said windows on a vehicle impinges on the device, thereby to activate the source of lighting associated with the respective device. 